


The Prince of Foam

by ZCreates (Zorav)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst and Feels, Jean calls Seung Gil princess a lot, Jean the water god, M/M, Mermaids, Otabek breathes fire, Seung Gil the mermaid, Worldbuilding, Yura is a spitfire character and I love him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11079060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zorav/pseuds/ZCreates
Summary: It's not fate or consequence. It's not even bad luck. It's a curse that he falls into and now he's tied to a god at the cost of his life. It's not just any god either - it's a god that smells like a storm with smoke gray eyes intent on consuming him, with hands that want to paint the world red. He has thirty days to find the sea that's been locked away within him, to become the name he's been given, to convince the god that he's worth coming out of the darkness for. It's that or become one with the foam, lost to the ones that once knew of who he was.In this dominion ruled by gods, he must find his own place, or be washed away by the onrushing tide.Wherein Seung Gil is a Mer that falls to the sea's trance, and Jean is the sea god who saves him. Yura is a Mer who wants to find the right inspiration, and Otabek is the fire god who catches him in his flame.(1/1: On hold pending a zine's completion!)





	1. The Lily Pond

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Seung Gil is a mermaid that Jean saves from the call of the ocean, where Jean is a water god that takes Seung Gil as his bride but can't do anything about the ill fate that awaits them, and where Otabek is also a god that loves making fun of Jean for falling in love with a mermaid (while harboring his own crush on one).

If anything, he should have seen the warning signs. He was sure history would say that he should’ve listened to the whispered words, swam away when the darkness began to spread from the depths. He should have found fear in the consuming black that stained all it touched, pushing out the bright hope in the sparkling coral.

Instead, he had found himself drawn to it, impossibly curious about the lights in the deep that only appeared when creatures of their world swam to the edge and peered in. They glittered like lost souls, a sea of orbs without a place in the world. He’d wanted to know what they were, where they’d come from, and why they never came into the sun. He’d wanted to know what existed on the other side of the line - a line that steadily moved forward, taking over everything his kind had once called home.

Looking back, his falling into darkness could be painted as a mistake, but there were many things he shouldn't have done that were more fitting of that label. It was easy enough to know what was forbidden, and the places where the light faded were things his society said to never touch. That was a god's domain, and that was a balance no one argued with. That order was easy enough to maintain until the day that all stories tell of - the day where everything changed.

It was in his routine to swim to the line, testing the divide but never crossing. That day, he had found the courage to reach slightly over into the other world, fingers breaching into a place of promised despair, and he waited for something to change. 

At first, to his mixed surprise, there was nothing. He dipped farther in, despite the warnings in his head, and reached out to see what he’d find. When he dipped his ear into the veil, he almost jumped at the slow sweet song that reached him, notes warbled lightly by the water, and he’d crossed the divide that went from light to dark like a bubble floating to the surface - pushed by an invisible force in a direction that only spoke of inevitability. It was without a second thought - a more primitive yearning forcing his fins to propel him forward.

Once past the line, everything came into a hazy tinted focus. He looked at everything around him, seeing the familiarity of things that once had been in the light. When he was younger, it had always fascinated him, how shadows changed even the smallest lines - transforming a face from a frown to a glower, or changing an impression of something with the smallest effort. 

The rest of his kind had found him slightly strange and he’d done nothing to change their opinion; the Mer didn't want anything to do with the other societies that roamed the ocean, least of all those that commanded the waters and the spirits in them. It was unnatural to command, to control or be controlled. His people said that the dark could make the brightest become monsters.

As he swam, he found everything around him changing, shapes an echo of what he once knew. The voice he’d followed was deceptive, alluring, broken in a way that asked him to become its quiet hero. He had scoured the corners to follow it, but only tunneled farther into the depths. He was rationally ready to run at a moment, but he was disillusioned by the light by the ocean fireflies, pulsing in the dark as if to lead the way.

He had paused in front of an odd archway in his quest, and he let himself find a ghost of a smile from days past, friends gone, moved on with so many others. It had once been a part of their city - a grand one at that - but now it was just part of the dark everyone was unwilling to journey into. The stone was cold as he trailed a finger across the granite, familiarizing himself again with something lost.

He shook his head, feeling his hair move around his tipped ears, and he wondered what sort of treasures they had left behind, hopefully for someone to find in a different time. He let his hand drop as he moved away, continuing on his journey to find the voice that was hidden in the depths.

Turn after turn, the darkness grew closer. The voice had continued, getting louder, and he wondered why such a sad song would be in such a place. A god’s home or not, no one needed to feel that trapped, and he’d swam on, determined to find the source.

Just as the voice had seemed to be right within his grasp, it’d stopped calling. The orbs had dimmed around him, leaving him petrified in the dark. He’d turned to go back to where he had begun, realizing he had fallen prey to the song of the sea, but there was no light that said there was another side. The darkness was endless.

He didn't have time to wonder what was coming for him. Panic had risen like a crushing wave as a feeling crawled around his throat and tightened, and he’d felt the one thing that a Mer should never experience - an immediate uncontrolled sinking.

He’d tried to reach out to grab anything, but the odd solid smoke had curled around him. He could feel it tightening its hold as it dragged him down, determined to make him a part of the stories the Mer told their children. He fought, wondering what his friends would think of him now, but it was a pointless endeavor as the depths swallowed his scream.

The darkness, he’d mused, would someday just have to tell his story.

//

The first thing that entered his mind was that his skin was on fire. It wasn’t a familiar sensation, but one he understood instinctively like a hunger - it was dry, crusting, broken from being too long away from the salt that protected his skin. He gasped out, finding his lungs just as chapped as he whined out his growing discomfort. He knew his tail was in some sort of water, but equally in a state of scaling frustration

It was the wrong sort of water, he noted as he dipped his fingers in the pool he was half in, half out of. There were lilies in every corner of this strange pond, perfectly pink and white as they floated along the surface, jerking only slightly as his motions disturbed them. He would have found it charming in a different scenario that didn’t have him feeling like he’d been laid out to dry.

He could barely think about the darkness that had almost consumed him with his skin spelling out a new impending demise. The lack of salt would cause his skin to pull away, and he’d lose his ability to breathe. He wondered how long he’d been in the pool to get this this point, as he had no sun to provide him those answers. Desperation struck as he continued to look around him. It didn’t escape him that this was a bit more than just dire.

He was in a cave, with the pond around him stretching beautifully over several lengths. Above him, the ceiling was domed, lit with small familiar orbs that dripped water from the cracks. He couldn’t see an exit, but he could see where the ground caved downward a few dirt-paved paces away. 

He had come from the ocean and he could still smell the trace of salt in the air, so even his panicked mind connected that there was a possibility that the exit would lead to the water that he so desperately needed. However, he was a Mer, and water movement was his only way of gaining ground, outside of dragging himself by his arms. It would be his death trying to make it there for a slim hope of it leading back to his home.

He ducked his face back into the pond, just enough to get his cheeks to go from a searing pain to a throbbing ache. He jumped as his ears found the whispered sound of water breaking, but it wasn’t water around him.

Hope cascaded around him as he looked up, meeting the eyes of a complete stranger staring at him as he moved up the bank. He had guessed right, as there was a stronger scent of salt that followed him and his wet clothing.

“Ah, you’re awake.” The dark eyes didn’t change as water dripped down his form over a barren chest he didn’t have the thought to appreciate. The long legs marked him as something beyond Mer, and also beyond just a simple human. 

“Please,” he got out, and the dark eyebrow raised as if to question his clear desperation. “Salt water.” He gasped out as he tried to explain, his voice cracking in the process. “Can’t breathe.”

The man’s pace didn’t quicken as he approached the pool and kneeled. Slowly, he slipped fingers under his chin, pulling his Mer form out of the fresh water. He had no option other than to force shaky limbs to accommodate the position, and the air bit at his exposed arms, burning in a way that made him want to scream.

“Pretty,” the man said, eyes still evaluating, before he leaned down, his other hand coming around the back of his neck to steady him. He seemed to be laughing for a moment more before the fine lips were cascading down on his.

He didn’t really know what to do with the kiss, especially from a stranger. He could only stare at the deeply tanned skin in silence, unsure of what to do, before he tasted the change. There was salt on the lips connecting them together, and he shivered, unable to see what was happening with the man’s hands, but the fingers flexed along the hold on his neck uncomfortably.

Blind to the actions, he still could feel it, experiencing the saline running over his body in waves as if it was melting off of the man kissing him. The man teased his mouth open with a sharp nip, and his cracked voice responded with a shocked whelp.

The stranger backed up a touch, then raised his fingers to the cracked skin he had just kissed, letting his touch pass over his teeth and pulling down his lip lightly. “Now that won’t do.” 

This time, he could see the water almost flowing in waves off of the man’s skin, directed by the fingers touching his lips. The gaze held him there as the water hit his lungs, and he jerked away, sputtering up excess water. He coughed as the man let him go, but instantly felt the seal covering his body, healing it faster than the damage had been done. He breathed in once to test the magical recovery, relieved to find that he could regulate the air normally again.

The man hummed, a strange note in his voice that seemed extremely foreign. “I apologize for that. I forgot you needed saline in your water.” He waited for a heartbeat as if expecting a response, then sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Mer in these parts. Your kind likes to avoid me.”

He glanced now at the man as he dipped his hands in the pool, as there was a strange honesty in those words. It was mystifying to watch the water shimmer, and he felt the salt water taking over the pond he was in.

“What about the lilies?” He found himself asking. It was a strange thing to ask, as only one of them could live while both were in the pool, but he asked anyway. He didn’t like the thought of anything dying.

“You like them?” The man asked, glancing at him again. He almost forgot to nod as those eyes studied him, and he returned his gaze to the water, twisting his hands sideways. He followed the look, but found himself trapped in a gaze in the water. “Then I’ll protect them. Just don’t go too close to them, or the salt will get pulled off of your skin.”

He didn't need a name to know who this was. They spoke of him in hushed whispers often enough, of the tortured brides given to the water in his name, of the shunted lovers he charmed then left on the land. He was brutal, pretentious, and about as cardboard of a villain as a childhood fairy tale character. He was the devil that everyone painted for a child’s nightmare.

The man again raised an eyebrow, which he gathered to be a common expression on the collected face. It was predictably self-assured as his eyes washed over him. “You must be an idiot to cross the line.”

“There was a voice.”

“That wanted you for dinner. You should be glad I heard you scream.” He ran his hand through the slightly damp hair, before he pulled his fingers back through, and the moisture seemed to follow his hand. He tossed his now perfectly dry bangs, letting it frame his eyes, and flicked the droplets back into the pond.

Mer were not supposed to find the gods attractive, but that was exactly what he found himself thinking at that moment. He figured that the others always had found him strange, so it wasn’t so surprising, but he had expected gods to be terrifying, brash, dominating. He hadn’t expected a cold beauty that would choose to save a Mer on the wrong side of the line.

“You were dancing with death when I brought you here.” He barely focused back in on the words, and ran his hands against his scaling on his arms. “If I hadn’t pulled the call out of you, you would have died.”

"You saved me,” he repeated, though he had already known it from the moment the man had kissed him and put the salt in the pool.

"I shouldn't have." There was a hard glimmer in the gaze as the strange, scaled man stood and walked to another edge of the pool, dipping his hands in again and rotating the water. He could feel the composition continuing to change to something more comfortable. "And that makes you unable to leave."

He opened his mouth to question that before the gaze came to meet his again, and he found the words caught. He was just a Mer, and he had just been saved from becoming part of the darkness by the prince of the damned, the trident of the currents, the ruler of the tide. Did he have a right to question what the man said?

“Forget whatever it was they used to call you,” the dark-haired man said as he dropped his gaze again to the water. He contemplated moving closer, but decided the distance meant safety. He had no idea on the extent of what this man could do.

Instead, he pushed back into the water, doing slow loops around the lilies that he was careful not to touch. “What do you mean?”

“Your name is Seung Gil.”

It was strangely melodic on the man’s tongue, and while he didn’t dislike it, he found it odd for that to be his choice. “But it’s not,” he said, splashing lightly as he jerked unnaturally in the water to avoid a lily he had almost swam into.

The man didn’t change at all as he continued studying the surface of the water, as if calculating if he had done enough. “It is now.”

He gulped as the hard gaze found his, and he stopped swimming. “Why?”

Instead of answering, the man again stood, and began moving across the water. On top, that is, of the water, with small ripples surrounding his feet as he padded calmly in his direction as if it were solid. He stared at the footsteps that trailed behind the god until they vanished as if never there.

He stopped before him again, and leaned in. He touched the side of his chin gently, angling his face just slightly. It was strange, being touched by a man that encompassed water, and he couldn’t decide whether he should be terrified or awestruck.

“Your name, starting now, is Seung Gil, so start using it. Memorize it. Become it.” He took a measured breath as those fingers traced his jawline. “Do you know who I am?”

He debated as the fingers stopped at his ears and he took a measured breath. He knew nothing about this man other than tales, and it was hard to say what wouldn’t be offensive. “The prince of the ocean.”

There was a small glimmer of the smile that said Seung Gil hadn’t named him incorrectly. “You can just call me Jean-Jacques. Jean works too, if that’s a bit hard on your tongue.” The fingers ran over the tip of his ear in a way that suggested something sinister. “Or I could make you practice it.”

Seung Gil moved away from the hand, though he knew that if the god wanted, the water would consume him, bind him, hold him for his whim. The god called Jean, however, let him swim and place that distance between them. 

“Why should you get to control me?”

There was the look he’d already come to expect, and a slight tilt of his head as he watched Seung Gil sink into the water, with his ears just above the surface to show he was listening. “Because, starting from the minute I saved you, I’ve owned you.”

He almost wished the darkness had found him then, but he pushed himself only slightly higher in the water to answer, echoing the expressionless tone the god had adopted, a good compromise to how he actually felt. “Own me?”

The god straightened and took a few more steps, finding him again and kneeling in front of him. Seung Gil found the courage to clasp the man’s knees to pull himself up. He wasn’t sure where he found that strength, but he didn’t like being looked down on and he highly doubted that the god would join him in the water. However, the fact that the god let him surprised him even more.

When he got the turn to study Jean, there was a smile on his face, haunted on his lips in a way that someone as powerful as a god shouldn’t know. Or maybe it was just because he was a god that he should know that torment. 

“You, my pretty little Mer, are now my bride.” Seung Gil blinked once, and the man dipped down slightly, a breath ghosting on lips that had already come together once, promising to do so again. “With that, I will keep you safe until the full moon.”

Seung Gil reached out, touching the light dimples on the hollow but pretty face. “Then?”

“And then,” slowly, Jean returned the gesture, trailing fingers across his scale-lined jawline, and reached down, tapping the pale skin of his chest, “and then, I’ll tear out your heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a note! I'd love to know what you think. Been working on tying in more of what we know back into the story in little but creative ways (spent far too long on the dynamics of Jean's tattoos, hah).
> 
> This was notably written for [rainlikestars](http://www.twitter.com/rainlikestars) on Twitter! It's my first dabble longer than 500 words, mostly because I mostly write OC work in my own universe.
> 
> If you'd ever like to follow me elsewhere: Twitter - [ZoravPOW](http://www.twitter.com/ZoravPOW) (notifications and WIPs). I also have OC novels and stuff like that... head over to Twitter if you want to take a look. Chat with me - I try to be friendly! :)
> 
> But yeah, please let me know what you thought! :D


	2. Colored Sea Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This almost doubled in length from Chapter 1... and from its original pass. But, y'know how it goes. More notes/rambles at the end.

There were ultimately two problems with Seung Gil’s personality. That wasn’t to say there weren’t other quirks that defined him, but they were the two things that kept him apart. They were the things that had him skirting the line of darkness, wondering what could be beyond the divide, or swimming to the surface to bask in the moonlight. They were the things that made him feel alone while drifting through a crowd. They were the things that made him paste an interested smile on when he felt someone watching, expecting something other than what he was.

The first was the more recurring but the quieter of the two faults. It was a focus, a drive for perfection. He knew he often came off as being uncaring during the times when he lost himself in his passions, when he turned a shuttered gaze to the rest of the world. This first facet to being him was more acceptable, more common to his kind than just him. For the few friends that he did have, he wasn’t alone in this, but it was that side of him that had his elders labeling him as hopeless, even a little naive. 

He didn’t mind - the world could watch him, or he could perform for the slow pulse of the quiet currents, just by himself, and it wouldn’t change the fact that he’d dance. He performed for himself, for the feeling in his veins as he chased his distant goals. It was an unfortunate consequence that the world wanted to watch. From that, he had learned it wasn’t worth the effort to care about what they thought, and few in return found him worth the effort to get to know beyond what he presented.

It was a transaction that he found peaceful. Few cared enough about where or who he would be, and everyone else forgot he existed.

The other flaw of his personality was a bit more problematic - a crass defiance that reacted with what he felt on the spot. It was sometimes volatile, understanding exactly what he wanted before he did, and exhibiting itself in ways that could be somewhat unfortunate. It wasn’t until after the moment passed that the realization always struck on what he had done, misery keeping him company as he watched Mer after Mer swim away. 

That was the side of him that decided hitting a god right across the face, with his tail for an extra dose of mortification, was the right choice. It hadn’t been half a heartbeat after he’d been told, with little explanation, that he’d lose his heart once the moon was at its peak. The other side decided that frantically swimming away and holing up on the bottom of the pond was probably a wise follow up.

It was a minor relief to see the warped view of the god treading back across the pond, steps rhythmically rippling in small waves that broke the surface of the water. When he stepped out, Seung Gil sighed, bubbles running out of his mouth with the motion. He let them go in a small stream - not needing them underwater - and curled up on the sandy floor as he watched the bubbles join the air pockets above him in the little cave. 

He wasn’t scared, which was fairly odd, all considering. He could imagine the god devising some evil way of ending the month early now that he had fin lines across his defined features. He didn’t really feel anything, like this was just another day in his peculiar life, where he rehearsed his dances and curled up in his kelp bed alone.

Seung Gil ran a hand along his fins, watching the color change from a muted gray to a vibrant blue, a consequence of heat’s proximity. He hummed lightly, then sighed as he turned his gaze to his new home.

Considering it as a home was bizarre, unnatural with how the thought sat in his mind, but Seung Gil was practical if nothing else. He had seen the hard line in the god’s eyes in how he’d addressed him, how he said he’d have his heart. There was no way to escape from a god - even if he had found a way out of the pond, he’d probably get hunted down by blood sharks by the time dinner rolled around - and it just wasn’t  _ logical.  _ There needed to be a plan, a better plan than something that sounded too similar to suicide.

He tucked his nose into the fold of his arm as he curled around himself, letting the semi-translucent folds of his tail shield him from the strange yellow-orange light. The exhaustion from being completely stripped of the salt in his blood was quickly catching up, and he couldn’t deny the overwhelming feeling of his limbs as he continued to consider his options. 

By the time he fell into a restless sleep, he knew the answer, the long-term goal to a game that he could learn to play. It seemed simple in his head, but he knew too that he had no guaranteed success with what he was about to try.

What he needed to do was convince the god that he was worth keeping alive.  

//

Like the name implied, gods were no ordinary men. And yet unlike what the word suggested, they were still creatures bound to the world. Just as they lived, they died. They created just as they destroyed. They were controlled by their pain just as they were their joy, just tied to a higher cost on either end.

Seung Gil knew that many forgot that the gods weren’t just massless creatures, forgotten in a coat of fear for what they didn’t understand - the reality that these beings were, in many ways, just creatures who held dominion over both the elements and those living within them, and were flawed just as they were. From what the stories boasted, they were war-torn, angry, faithless. They were disgusted by the world, and thus fewer and fewer of them either chose to live in it, or they had slowly wiped each other out.

He recognized these as stories - no one really knew what the reason was for how or why these beings had faded from the world - but there was a spark of truth in it regardless. The god called Jean was the only god he’d ever met, and the stories told of times when, of little and large power, they had controlled cities in both prosperity and times of war. Now, the Mer watched from the sea as the humans brought a manmade darkness to the world, polluting and destroying so much of it without a thought to spare it.

From the mysterious forces they controlled, the Mer were taught a respect, a restraint. Gods were to be kept at a distance, for all to admire and for all to loathe. When something wretched shook the earth, his people whispered that the gods were angry somewhere, but they never chose to thank them when the seas were calm and returned all the human passengers to their homes. He saw the hypocrisy in the actions of his own, but also knew it was, as many things were, a thankless existence. Now, their kind was one of the few that remembered the gods, as the humans had forgotten, seeing science as a way to explain all. 

Gods were the mirrors of perfection, a balanced chaos in a world ravaged by the errors of the past. They were the echoes of what the world could have been if emotion hadn’t colored it with the lines of change.

He hadn’t missed how Jean seemed tarnished, as if beaten down one too many times by the storms that surrounded him. However, yet still, he created, producing beauty under his fingertips, as was evidenced by the pond that surrounded Seung Gil. He could feel the presence of the god all around him, keeping it all alive in a serene balance. 

Even from the bottom, the pond was perfect, as if undisturbed in a fathomless agelessness. The lilies, he had quickly found, weren’t all that was in the pond, though there was no other conscious life to speak of. There were sparkling gems in the top of the small coves, sea shells that sat in small piles along the walls. At the depths where he remained for hours, there were lotuses with graceful sweeping stems, clustered together as if huddling for warmth. Instead of climbing to a light source, the odd plants curled back downward, omitting little lights that colored the sandy floor like lamps in a dark night.

He wasn’t used to how perfectly still this pond was. In the ocean, something was always moving, alive with the motion of the world. He was used to fish coming up to him curiously, debating fear, and used to the calls of the ancient from the depths. He was used to the constant rushing in his ear, the constant pull of the waves as he neared the surface. But here, in the crystal clear water of the lotus pond, there was just stillness and silence.

By the time he had made a full loop through the pond’s floor, studying every nook and cranny, his situation was gradually catching up to him, setting off alarm bells in his head, and he cursed the shock for making him slow. How was he possibly going to go home? With a god’s will in the way, it was something next to impossible, but he at least wanted to say he was okay, that he was alive, if only for now.

He didn’t have an answer for that yet, but he’d find a way. He didn’t have many that he wanted to contact, but there were enough friends who he knew would agonize over his absence. He wasn’t willing to ask the god for that, as pleading with a god over the weakness of a heart, the yearning for home, probably wasn’t something he’d sympathize with. He hardly recognized it, as it was, as it wasn’t what he was feeling either.

He didn’t mind losing that home, but he also didn’t understand the messy reaction he was having to being forced to separate from it.

Life had made him unique. He had never been graced with any of the more elegant abilities of the Mer, and was much more talented at the physical manifestations of their gifts. He drew too many crowds, had too many people saying his name. None of them, however, had ever gotten close enough to really see him, to touch the scales that shifted during his dance. 

As the attraction pulled people in, he wasn’t inexperienced. He knew the charms of being chased, but he had never known the consuming heat of melting under a stare, promising to teach him of things he didn’t know.

That, more than the time was given, more than the powers the god carried, more than the home he would never see again, he was afraid of.

//

He woke up to something breaking the surface of the water, creating ripples that shifted the stillness above him. It was a sound he didn’t have a chance to hear often from where he normally swam, hundreds of feet underwater. Sounds in general were distorted, highs and lows flowing together in an intricate weave, little noises being carried away with the swirling water. There was little permanence to it, but he treasured the comfort it usually brought.

When the vibrations continued, shattering the stillness, he couldn’t help uncurling, dipping his head out of the little cave he’d made into a nesting spot. It wasn’t hard to find the objects as they fell, slowly drifting along in a quiet dance. He could see the currents in the water rearranging the colorful sea glass until they settled on the ground, gradually forming a message that could have been easily seen from any portion of the pond.

They continued to break through the surface, slowing falling as the water cushioned them, glittering as they caught the strange rays of light in their path. Seung Gil found himself drifting out to watch the words appearing, amused by the knowledge that this god could easily force him up in a number of ways.

_ Come up? _

He didn’t need to be told twice that it was an order from a god, and he was just about losing his mind to the quaking of his stomach as it was. This would be a short month if the god intended on starving him in this lifeless pond.

With a single push of his fins, he was rushing through the water, relishing the speed of the motion as he broke through the surface in seconds. He didn’t get more than a moment to send a glare at the man who had ordered him up before the water seized around him, unnaturally curling and expanding, pushing him out of the water.

The water formed a column as it held him in place, wrapping like vines around his arms and fins. The god smirked, a single hand extended as he held his form in place. Seung Gil could see the long red marks that lightly marred the otherwise perfect face, lines that were just now starting to fade, and he felt a pulsing mix of pride and annoyance.

The strange god was just inches away, and if Seung Gil had chosen to, he could have reached out to touch the man, closing the fingers that were kept rigidly firm as if that motion was what controlled the water. 

For the first time, Seung Gil noticed that the other hand folded across his chest, fingers curled around the crook of his arm, was stained black as the night, reaching halfway up his arm with a patterning that looked splashed on. He narrowed his eyes at it, before the amused voice brought him back to the fact that he was trapped in a small cyclone under a god’s control.

“Are we done pouting now?”

He wanted to groan loudly to curse his luck. From the few words they had exchanged, this god was already everything he hated in a creature. Loud, uncaring about other lives, a charmer who got what he wanted. He used and tossed away as the fancy took him, and he left a path of destruction in his wake, so used to being treated like royalty. He’d be just like the rest of them, but Seung Gil was determined to find a way to make him bend.

Needless to say, adding ‘even if it killed him’ to that thought wasn’t all that funny.

“Hardly. I came up because I’m hungry.” He hit the water holding him with his palms, spraying the god in the face. The god’s expression didn’t change as he continued to hold him in place, water dripping down his bangs and across his cheeks. Seung Gil followed the pathing water unconsciously, watching it curl down the firm jawline until he realized, with a dash of horror, that he was staring a bit too openly at the god’s chest. A small knowing smile tugged at the fine lips of his tormentor, and he did his best to suppress his embarrassment.

He tried jerking lose again, despite how useless the action was. He could almost feel how the water responded to the man, almost begging to be of use, so he knew full well that if the god chose, he’d be here far after he was gone from the world, pinned in a cyclone of his own foolishness. 

While he’d known from the beginning that this god wasn’t just an ordinary third-rate being, he figured this display at least placed him in second string.

“Let me down, you insufferable being,” he grumbled out.

“But princess, how will I get you to talk to me?”

Seung Gil grumbled at the new nickname, splashing the man again and pointedly glaring at the small scar to the left of his right eyebrow as the water resumed journeying down the man’s body. It proved effective enough at making sure his gaze stayed put. “Fine, I’ll talk to you, but let me go.” 

He watched Jean’s hand loosen ever so slightly. The moving column of water curled around him stilled, holding up for only a moment before he and the water fell, crashing into the pond.

He coughed as the air rushed out of his lungs and was replaced by water, not having the time to fix how he breathed. He winced as he pushed himself out of the pool, reclining on the sandy bank. He felt more than saw the god’s eyes watching him. “Something tells me you could have lowered me down more gently.”

There was something that sounded like a chuckle in response, but when Seung Gil looked at the stranger, any sign of it had disappeared. “That was for hitting me with your tail earlier.”

He grumbled as he wished he was further in the water, but knew that action wouldn’t help him in his pledge to change this god’s mind. He settled with observing as the man lowered himself onto the ground. He sat cross-legged along the edge a pace away. It seemed peculiar, strangely forbidden, that a god was willing to lower himself to talk to him, but he thought better of asking. He didn’t want to insinuate that this god was at his level - he didn’t know about the man’s temper yet, and being torn apart in a more deadly column of water didn’t sound particularly entertaining.

“I’m sorry about your face.”

“Don’t pretend to be sorry,” Jean said, an amused smile lighting up gray-blue eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that you are utterly captivating?”

Seung Gil could almost feel the scales on his cheeks changing color. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a disaster?”

There was a pause where they stared at each other, and Jean was suddenly laughing, waving him off as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“A disaster?” Seung Gil gave a pointless shrug. He had a feeling that the man would have kept talking even if he had ignored him completely. “I did save you, you know.”

That and, of course, subjected him to a month-death sentence, but Seung Gil figured that was the lesser of the commentaries at hand. “You also said you shouldn’t have.”

“I’m sure you’re fully able to change my mind.”

He was pretty sure his scales were learning some new colors, because all of this was definitely that - new. He took a breath as he flexed his hands, running fingertips down the muscle on his tail. “You said I’m your bride?”

“You are.”

It was such a short answer to something he had worked so hard to not sound biting that he wanted to paint another set of lines across the stranger’s face. “What does that mean? There are two somewhat obvious problems with that.”

“Oh, do tell, princess.”

“First of all, I hope you see all the obvious problems with ‘marriage’ as a god,” Seung Gil muttered, while pushing the water around. The god seemed to raise an eyebrow - that favorite expression of his - as if to say ‘so what’ to his reasoning. “Second of all, I’m male.”

“Ah, I know that look. You’ve heard of the rumors of my serial womanizing.” Seung Gil sent him a look that he hoped conveyed what he felt about those ‘rumors’ and how his previous escapades weren’t as amusing as Jean seemingly found them. “Tastes change. I find that you’re rather perfect.”

“Did you practice these lines in a mirror?” The smoke-like eyes twinkled with mischief in response. “But what does being your bride mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean. You own my existence for a month. I’ll do anything you bid,” the man said with a somewhat demure shrug. Seung Gil found that the action didn’t fit him.

“Anything?” He prompted, imagining more than a few strange possibilities of what a water god could offer him. 

“Outside of letting you go, eradicating a species, and drowning sea otters for a sick kick, yes - anything, little princess.”

He had to fix the look of indifference on his face. Clearly, this god was getting to him faster than Seung Gil was getting to Jean. “Don’t call me that.”

The gaze he found on the god was like an invitation, a suggestion, a challenge all at once. Whatever thought he’d been trying to form was washed away with the threat of drowning under its intensity. “What do you want me to call you - little guppy?”

He snarled at the common misconception, feeling irritation mark his expression and breaking the daze. “I am not part fish.”

There was a flash of a perfect smile that made it quickly apparent that the god fully knew this, and just enjoyed tormenting him. “Your scales beg to differ.”

“You know just as well as I do that my kind are completely hot-blooded. If anything, we’re more like you, or like dolphins,” he noted, punctuating his remark with a flex of his tail. The spray of water coated the space between them.

He didn’t expect the god to reach into the water, running a single finger along more skin-like textures. He felt it like a brand, and jerked away, seeing the skin and scale around it change color at an alarming rate. Seung Gil had a sinking feeling that this game was really not going to go well, but the man chose to back up, pointing at his scaled arms. “More like dolphins and gods except for the scales, you mean. I should remind you that those are like fish.”

“You know it’s defensive,” he bit back, and the water rippled around him as he tucked his fins completely under the surface.

A smile quirked at his lips. “I know it’s beautiful, little princess.”

“You’re not quitting that, are you?”

“Not unless you offer a better nickname before this one sticks - oh wait, sorry, I do believe it’s stuck.”

There didn’t seem to be a way to make that grin come undone. “Are you always this peppy?”

“When talking to pretty Mers, sure.”

He decided to not comment on how the god had said just yesterday that he hadn’t seen one of his kind in a long time. “So, what did you bring for food?”

“What if I said I didn’t bring food?”

Despite the fact that he could smell it wafting toward them, he set his jaw in defiance. “Should I go back to starving at the bottom of this pond by myself?”

“Fine, fine.” The man leaned back and dragged a plastic bag nearer to them both, then started sorting out the contents. The god shook his head as he must have seen Seung Gil glaring. “Don’t do that - I won’t litter the same sea I rule over with this junk. Who do you think spends Saturdays as ‘Save the little animals in plastic’ day?” The look was completely serious. “It was just a means of transport since I brought a few selections. I wasn’t sure what you’d like since it’s human food.”

It was odd to be touched by an action of a god, but he found himself dropping the glare. “I just want the first thing that catches your eye.”

There was a quirk in the god’s grin as he glanced up. “Are you on the menu?”

Seung Gil was really quite glad he was as hungry as he was, because that quelled the flustered squawking that might have otherwise been the reaction.

It felt like there were little sea monkeys doing somersaults in his stomach when he took a single large breath to even his nerves. “Don’t think that flattering me will make you more appealing, Jean.”

“I do like it when you say my name, princess.” He only caught a glimmer of the grey-blue eyes. They flashed in an expression that warned of danger, before the god hummed his amusement, shifting his attention to another dish wrapped in more plastic. “You are part fish, aren’t you?”

“I feel like we just established that I’m not, so no, I am not on the menu as sushi.”

“Oh, I was thinking of something far more interesting,” the god chimed, but let the comment go as he placed something in front of Seung Gil. 

“What is it?” Seung Gil said as he pulled it closer, staring at the red-sauced seafood. He sniffed, determining that it was squid, and raised an eyebrow. He’d never had human food before, but it did smell edible, outside of the green things that decorated small portions of the plate.

The god handed him chopsticks after cracking them apart. “Korean. Ojingeo deopbap. Try it first before you make any judgments. You do know how to use chopsticks, don’t you?”

“Don’t be insulting. Just because we live underwater doesn’t mean we’re savages.”

There was a loud chuckle as the god picked something for himself, cracking his own pair. “Sorry, sorry. I honestly know very little about the Mer.”

He snorted as he picked up a piece of squid, staring at it curiously before biting down. There was a strong fire that bit at his lips from the start, and he almost dropped it in surprise. He could hear the god laughing, before there was a glass of water in front of him, the smoky seaglass a reminder of the dark eyes watching him.

After more fresh water to dull the initial impact and a few more testing bites, he found he liked the spicy tones. When the god asked, he grumbled out that he liked the human dish, and the man laughed between his own bites. He grinning as he noted it was good thing, since the god didn’t exactly feel compelled to go catch them both dinner.

Halfway through the dish, Seung Gil felt decidedly full, and pushed it back toward Jean. The man smirked, and held up a piece from his own dish, offering it with a coy smile. Seung Gil grimaced as he accepted it, wrinkling his nose at the odd taste. “What is that?”

“Beef.”

He wrinkled his nose further as he considered the word. “What the hell is a beef?”

Jean picked up another piece of his dish and studied it, as if trying to recall exactly what it was. “Think whale but brown and very slowly moving.”

“That sounds exceedingly awful.”

“Welcome to land animals,” Jean noted with another chuckle, sparing him another glance as he picked up something green Seung Gil felt his stomach turning at. “You really are interesting. It didn’t occur to you that I might’ve poisoned the food you just ate?”

While it actually hadn’t, he decided that admitting that wouldn’t be the best thing for his pride. “If you wanted to kill me, you could have chosen not to save me yesterday, torn me up in the water, or let me starve.”

The god nibbled on his odd food contentedly. “Fair point.”

For a few minutes, they sat in silence as Jean seemed to enjoy playing with the remnants of his dish, then chided Seung Gil for not eating any of the green on his plate. 

When he started to do small laps to work off the meal, Seung Gil found that he had the god’s attention again, following him intently. As he surfaced, finding that the gaze hadn’t moved, he decided he wasn’t sure whether it was unnerving to be watched or not. The tanned man had set aside his dish finally, leaning on his palms. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”

“Are you sure you want me to do that?” He called back from where he was across the pond, dipping under the waves he had created and came back up, finding himself a bit farther out than intended.

The god had stood and moved to the edge, still just watching and looking as if he was debating jumping in, so he swam closer to bring them back within speaking distance. The man raised an eyebrow to question what he was doing, but extended a hand, waggling his fingers for him to continue coming closer. “If you don’t talk, this is going to be a long month.”

“Fine.” He silently reminded himself of the game he needed to win, and it started in these moments. “You said I could control you?”

The god shrugged once, but there was a smirk on his lips. “In a sense, my actions are still my own, but I’ll give you anything material that you want.”

He found the ledge of the pond, and pulled himself up. The god kneeled again to put them closer, perhaps a bit too close. They were a breath away from each other, but the lack of distance already seemed too familiar. “Is it like a token system? Do I have a set number of wishes?”

“Only a set number of days.”

Seung Gil pushed himself up out of the water then, and took the back of the man’s neck to pull him closer. There was a trapped breath between them before he gave his best conspiring smile. “Then we shouldn’t delay.”

“Do tell,” Jean prompted, steadying himself with a hand along the sand. The other crawled up Seung Gil’s neck, and he had to direct more than a reasonable amount of mental power into controlling the color of his scales. 

“I want to play a game,” he returned in what he hoped sounded controlled.

“You shouldn’t do that. Those can be dangerous,” Jean chided while letting his lips ghost along Seung Gil’s nose.

“Why’s that?”

“We’re just strangers, after all. Strangers with a bit of a strange contract,” the god noted, but the faint notes of humor in his voice didn’t fade, and the hand now holding the side of his face didn’t move. He was all but issuing the verbal invitation.

Seung Gil had never labelled himself as being faint of heart, but he was starting to wonder if he was with how his body was rebelling against logical control. He knew he should be afraid, angry maybe, but this type of overwhelmed was reserved for lovestruck maidens in books, and he didn’t have the time for it. 

He fixed a smile on his face, and got one in return. Life was an act, and this was no exception - unless his heart decided to beat out of his chest and he accidentally dug his own grave in the sand. He supposed he’d just be out of luck at that point. “Well, I want to play, and I’m telling you to come along with me.”

He hated how calm Jean was, as if this was a normal occurrence in his day to day. But then again, it could have been, and he’d be none the wiser.

“Very well. What’s the game?”

There was the opening he’d known eventually was coming. The game could be anything - a lap around the pool, catching dinner perhaps - but his mind fixed on the touch that connected them like a drug, vibrating with a tension that refused to dissipate. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it was suddenly all encompassing, obsessive and unrelenting.

It was wrong, something hummed in the back of his mind. Nothing could possibly find any good about trying to seduce a god, but in that moment there was the curl of the fingers on the scales of his cheeks, smoke seeking out amber, the waiting. It wanted him to challenge its existence, to find the boundaries, so he did, falling prey to his own personality.

“The first one to touch the other loses. Winner can name a condition.” The words came out rushed, in a single breath, but Seung Gil was just glad they came out in the proper order at all.

“I believe we’re already touching, and you already own my actions, don’t you? You can order me to do whatever you’d like,” Jean noted, still far too close with how the air was buzzing.

“I’d rather earn it.” He leaned into Jean’s hand briefly, hoping the expression came off as more than just desperation. “And it’s to do more than this.”

“More than this, you say. What, like this?” Jean swooped down, fixing his lips carefully on his. It was fast, zapping through him like lightning, and he gasped, almost losing his grip on the ledge, before Jean let go of that touch, moving to hold him in place. “Like that, right?”

Seung Gil just stared at him, glancing between the god’s eyes and his lips, trying to understand what had just happened. “The point was  _ not _ to do that.”

Jean chuckled, before pulling him back in. “Oh but you don’t understand me much at all, princess. That is a game I am fully willing to lose.”

Seung Gil’s mind slipped under the returned pressure of those lips, but the faint thought flickered that despite the statement, he was definitely the one losing, a plan gone completely awry, and there he was, without a hesitation, drowning in a god’s sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEUNG GIL. I hope I did you some justice.  
>  Also, uh, leave me comments. I love comments. I love comments a lot. 
> 
> Many thanks go to [inqueblott](http://archiveofourown.org/users/inqueblott/pseuds/inqueblott) for help in editing this chapter.
> 
> Next chapter: More gods, more games, ink tattoos and seashells?


	3. Squid Ink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get some answers! More rambling at the bottom. <3

**** It took him three days to realize he missed the sun.

It wasn’t immediately apparent - more of a feeling that grew in him as he swam overlapping circles in the pond, weaving around the lilies that had reached past the surface. It wasn’t just that he had nothing to do, but also that he felt out of place, weary from not feeling the waves at his back and seeing the streams of light fragmented as they were consumed by the watery depths. 

Despite having the entire pond and a god that said he’d do anything that was bid of him, Seung Gil felt like a caged animal.

He hadn’t quite placed the feeling until he had grown tired of his endless loops and found a spot to perch on far away from where the god normally settled down. It was silent in the cavern apart from the slow song of water falling to embrace its lonely cousin below, splattering on sand and stone, and the beat of his heart betraying him as it thundered needlessly in his chest. When minutes turned to what only could have been hours, it was a slow realization that time was passing entirely composed of staring at the ceiling in silence, an empty mind just watching the patterns of light change with the rippling of droplets. 

Seung Gil came back to the moment, blinking rapidly as he felt the sting of his eyes from staring for too long. He hadn’t managed to escape from wondering why he was feeling so put off about waking in this strange pond, and the thought only brought fear to his mind. It spurred him to move again, diving into the water to only partially calm his racing heart. The reaction turned to counting bubbles as they escaped from the confines of his fingers as he sank down to the bottom, then, when he surged back up to break the surface, let his hands trail across the glimmering divide between an echo of what was lost and a world he didn’t know. The ruined mirrored images of tranquility did nothing to quell his growing irritation. 

The dripping lanterns continued creating small ripples across the water, not letting him forget that his situation was real and present, that change was unyielding to his wishes. It was a reminder that this was anything but a dream. 

The thing that bothered him the most wasn’t the fact that he was a prisoner of a god, or even that he now had only a month to live before the same god promised to paint the ground with his blood. The problem existed in that he had no way to productively spend his time, no traction to change his circumstances, nothing to do other than swim in circles around poisonous lilies and wait. He was frustrated that he was helpless to do anything about where or how he was kept.

He chose to focus on the one thing that had the power to rewrite this story - the odd but beautiful god - and try to create a plan, if one could possibly exist. None of his kind could claim to have a lot of experience in dealing with these creatures as, with good reason, they kept to themselves. The stories told of their affinity for the helpless humans, but that didn’t say much for negotiating with them. These gods certainly didn't make it a normal practice to kidnap Mer then release them, so the tale of how to survive being a sea god’s captive wasn’t quite the common bedtime story. That also said, he highly doubted that most gods of nature chose to fetch spicy plates of squid for their captives.

He ultimately decided that Jean was more than what the stories depicted, which meant there was a chance he could do something to convince him, but the question of how remained. It was in the middle of one of these long debates with himself that his dark-haired captor broke through the sea entrance, drenching water all over the dry sand. 

Seung Gil watched him from a perch in the center of the pond. He had found out the day prior that it was a good vantage point - the little island served as a nice viewpoint to watch the creature come and go. It was also just high enough to know that escaping from the pond would be a painful process, if not fruitless.

In his first trip, Jean brought in a small pail that was sealed with a human-created cap, setting it down on the ground. He dove back into the water, muscles a rippling flash of power as he disappeared, and shortly reemerged with more bagged items in plastic which Seung Gil could only assume to be dinner. He grumbled to himself, feeling the loss of time from the last time he’d seen the god.

Jean dropped the second bag along the ledge where they had eaten a small breakfast earlier in the day. Seung Gil saw his captor motion casually in his direction, so he pushed off of the stone into the water, swimming to the ledge and breaking the surface next to the bag. Flicking off the water on his hands, he pulled the loose knots apart to evaluate the contents.

It was new food, like all of the meals had been so far, and he asked if he could try both dishes. The god just waved his acceptance, oddly muted for his usually overbearing personality.

Seung Gil split the plates and decided he was hungry enough to dig into whatever this was without asking for an explanation - probably another land mammal - and nibbled tentatively on the meal. Instead of the fire from before, it was partially sweet, and he hummed his amusement, deciding that he decided he’d be better off not naming or knowing the origins of whatever this was. 

He turned his eyes back to Jean, who had only watched him briefly before returning to his own tasks. When those slim fingers cracked open the pail, Seung Gil knew what it was by the smell and reconsidered eating while the man was doing whatever he was about to do. 

“Why do you have that?” he asked while covering his nose, backing up in the water until the pond pushed the air out of his nose. 

The god gave him a disdainful look, and raised the arm that was stained black. With a second glance with the distance between them, Seung Gil studied the limb that was offered as an explanation. He could see the color beginning to fade, light lines underneath that betrayed a different pattern other than the solid back. He remembered how it had looked the day prior - a uniform sable all the way up his arm - and understood. Jean was reapplying the stain that had begun to vanish. 

After the being seemed to determine that he understood, he pulled out another pail without a word, letting a hand hover over the one that was offending the air in the cavern. The dark liquid he’d uncapped began to float, slowly separating in the air until there was a small ball of pure black and another ball of clear liquid. The clear liquid went into the original pail, lidded immediately, and the god moved the black ink to the new container. 

When Seung Gil pushed himself back up, letting his nose filter in the air from above, he found that the overwhelming fishy odor had faded.

“You get used to the smell. Separating the concentrations helps with that, and it’s more potent as a dye,” Jean offered. “Means I don’t have to sit idly as long with my hand in the ink.”

The man began undoing the gold bracelets he had along his arms as Seung Gil returned to the shore, evaluating what he was doing. “Why do you use ink that just fades away? Does real ink not stick to your skin? What are you covering?”

The tall god looked at him, eyes darkened as he studied the look on his face. “It’s not about the ink itself.”

“Are you going to explain, or not? I promise you that you’re just wasting time if you want to play cat and mouse,” he grumbled as he lifted up his plate, picking around the vegetables. “I promise it’s an answer you’ll share before we’re done with dinner.”

The god seemed more amused than offended, which was probably for the best. He still hadn’t seen the being even remotely irritated. “You’re awfully cocky for a little Mer in a pond.”

“You’re awfully pitiful for a god with dominion over the sea.” 

When the long arms froze at the suddenness of it - after all, who talked back to someone who could skewer you for dinner without consequence - Seung Gil noted to himself that maybe reining in the snark would probably make sure he got a full thirty days to live. His plan of ‘convince sea god to let the Mer live’ wouldn’t really go so well if the god just decided to let him starve.

After they stared at each other for several breaths, the god surprised him by laughing. There was something tainting in the tone, a controlled element that contrasted oddly with his flowing demeanor. “Fine, you want to know why I have this?”

He picked up another vegetable and put it on Jean’s plate. “That was the question.”

The god leaned on his unstained hand, studying his own skin. “If I get a real tattoo, the names move.”

“Names?”

He was already looking like he had said too much. “Yes, names.”

Seung Gil sat down his plate and hummed to himself, wondering if this was really the right choice. “Show me.”

The god studied him, seeming to taking in the demand over his own apparent discomfort, and sighed as he gave in. Without a word, he pulled his hand away from the bowl of ink and stood before walking over to where Seung Gil was half floating on the bank. He sat cross-legged and leaned his hand into the water, releasing a slight breath at the contact. He flexed his stained hand once, then a fuzzy neon blue surrounded his fingers. The old residue seemed to float off of his hand, forming a dark cloud of smoke-like existence as if ink had just been dropped into the pond. He shook his hand once to get it to dissipate, and slowly pulled out of the water, presenting his secret before them both without looking at it.

Seung Gil stared at the finely muscled arm, before reaching up and taking it, running his fingertips down the markings that ran from the tips of Jean’s fingers all the way to where the ink normally stopped halfway to his elbow. There were words everywhere, neatly in a strange script, wrapping around his arm, wrist, palms. Where one ended, another began, with just enough space to know that they were separated. There were some in languages he understood, some that were in languages he was sure were gone. All of it stood pronounced, a black against tanned skin. There was no part that had faded - as if those words had been placed there just a moment ago.

“They’re all names.”

It was a sleeve of names that crawled up his arm, previously imperfectly masked by the squid ink. He only looked at the lines for a moment more before he returned to stare at the god, seeing the seared misery on the panes of his face.

“I’ve tried real ink, but it just moves, so it’s not worth the pain even if it doesn’t fade, because it doesn’t do anything to stop me from seeing it.”

Seung Gil didn’t say anything, continuing to run his fingers over tanned skin. The god gripped a pair of chopsticks in his teeth, splitting them apart and starting to pick at the plate that had been set aside for him. 

He pushed at the arm gently, looking from the front to the back. The names were there - everywhere - and it wasn’t hard to guess why he’d want to cover up the marking of his past. “There are so many of them.”

“Yes,” Jean breathed, sounding trapped. He pointedly picked up a vegetable, giving him a dry look knowingly. “I don’t know who they are anymore. All except the first one.”

Seung Gil hadn’t realized that at some point he’d started using the arm to hold himself up until he saw the slight strain in the muscles. He backed up against the wall again, continuing to run fingers across the taut skin, examining how all the names were written differently, as if it had been them inking down their memory. “What do you mean?”

“You can guess.”

He gritted his teeth, feeling a lacing irritation rip through him at being kept out. The reality that he had no right to be there cried defiantly to be heard. “I can, but I want to hear it.”

The blue eyes stared back at him accusingly. “Then ask.”

There was a single name that sat on top of scarred skin. It was the only name that was out of place, looking as if the god had tried to get rid of it repeatedly, but the ink laid on top of it appearing as fresh and unmarred. “Isabella.” He slipped his fingers over the name, feeling the difference in how the skin felt, and the god shivered at the contact. “Who was she?”   
  
The tall man flinched, seeming to tuck inside a stony wall created from history as he studied the name for himself. There was a weary smile as he moved his hand back, standing up and heading to the ink bucket with his food in hand. He shook to get rid of the water, then settled back to resume what he had been doing. “She was the first.”   
  
“What do you mean by first?”    
  
Seung Gil watched the man’s expression shutter, the dangerous glinting of pain in those reproachful eyes. He wished he knew what to do over just hovering in the water and staring at him. “The first I saved and the first to die.”   
  
Jean still refused to look at him as he pushed himself out of the pond onto the sandy bank beside him. “That’s why you gave me a name. So you’d not know who it was on your arm when you looked at them after the month.”   
  
The silence hung between them, as heavy as the tropical currents, and the god just stared at the list of names on his arm, his personal bloody ledger of people he’d never been able to save.

The blue eyes met his then, and he understood the weariness now. “Every name is someone I tried to save, just like you. Every name of a person I made my bride and lost a month later. Every  _ real _ name. No one has ever taken the name I’ve given them, but how could they? They can’t become someone I can save.”

Seung Gil was frozen in spot, suddenly realizing that it wasn’t possibly about just convincing the god to let him go. There was something much more ancient about what was happening here, and he didn’t have enough time to process before the name was slipping out of him again, entranced by the pain that was rolling off of this creature in waves. “Jean.”

It was if he had frozen just for this moment, a hurt so present that Seung Gil had no issue believing that he’d never wanted to hurt anyone. “That’s why.” A shuddering breath was there, and he had to marvel how quickly this had fallen from composure to a shattering fragility. “It’s why so when I look at that name five, ten, fifty years from now, I won’t see your name on my arm and remember your face, remember doing whatever we will do in the next 27 days, or the look in your eyes when you smile, or the feeling of your skin under my hands. That’s why.”

Seung Gil considered the comment, noting the varying degrees of warmth. He was fairly convinced that this creature was more mortal in his emotions, more haunted by them, than most had tried to depict his kind as being, and he could see how Jean carried his past. 

He continued to watch the man prep the ink curiously before he had a thought, pushing himself slightly farther out of the water as he reached out. “Jean, I have a request.”

The god scoffed as he paused. “You seem to be full of them today.”

Seung Gil raised an eyebrow before grinning, a new plan, an approach, popping into his head. He had no idea what the laws to this game were, but sitting and watching certainly didn’t earn him any points. He might as well act the part so well that he believed it. “Do you have an ink brush I can borrow?”

Jean seemed largely unamused with the request. “Doesn’t everyone?” 

“You’re a god.”

That got a quirk in his lips out of amusement. “I hadn’t forgotten.”

“I wasn’t going to assume that you were anything ordinary.”

The god paused, eyebrows scrunching as he considered both him and the pond and what he could possibly want with an ink brush. “Fine, fine. Hold on.” The god stood up, placing a lid over the ink, and moved several paces away to a sheet of coral. He slammed his foot down on the top and it splintered, and Seung Gil watched in amazement when the fragments dissolved into seashells.

What a weird creature.

Underneath the seashells was a panel of wood, with a hinge that the god pulled on. Sand puffed up as it slid off the cover, and he could see that inside were a various number of things. There were small closed chests with locks of iron, coins and dollar bills that he had seen when Mer had brought back sunken treasures and volumes and volumes of various journals, eaten away by time. Jean rummaged around before he found a small sleeve, sliding out a gold-laden brush.

He tilted it in Seung Gil’s direction, as if to ask if it was what he wanted, and he nodded, waving for him to come over, and noted to bring the ink.

It was his first true instruction, a real demand, and Jean complied without hesitation, bringing both the ink bucket and the brush over and settling on the sand. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t intend on just being a name on your arm,” he said, feeling the skin on the man’s arm. He seemed, in the moment, so normal that he could have passed as human. That was, of course, until the god raised his hand, and the coral that had been covering the hatch slowly began to regrow from several paces away.

Definitely _ not _ human.

Jean looked back down at him as Seung Gil dabbed the brush in the ink, holding his hand in one of his. It felt oddly intimate, and for a moment he wondered if it was a feeling a god could even have. He glanced up to catch the look that seemed slightly panicked. “No, I meant what are  _ you _ doing? Right now. What are you doing?”

He allowed himself to smile, enjoying the torment, and Jean seemed even further perplexed by that response. He absently wondered if him smiling was really that affronting, so he refocused his attentions on the arm in front of him. “It’s a Mer custom. In celebrations, we’d paint tattoos on your other half with ink. You tell them about what you feel, your story, where you want to go.”

The god said something he didn’t catch under his breath. “Have you ever done this before?”

He remembered all the designs on his parents, some of his friends as they’d grown older. “No.” 

There was a groan. “Wonderful.”

The ink, dark and far more condensed than the ones he’d ever seen, touched the smooth skin. “It is just a sleeve. I’m really not sure how I can go wrong.” 

Jean seemed to calm at that answer, a dangerous but easy smile gracing his features. “Do I get to paint on you?”

“If you want,” he commented as he dabbed the brush in the pail again, and traced around the fingers that were only lightly marred by names.

“What are we celebrating? We have to be celebrating something, right?” The god continued to study the fingers that were holding his hand up, smudged now in traces of the stain.

“Being alive.”

Jean paused before leaning in slightly, close enough that Seung Gil could see the gray and the blue separate in his eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m going to convince you to let me live.” That much, he hoped, would find its way to becoming the truth.

The smile faded. “You do know that it’s not a choice I make, right?”

He refused to believe that. “Everything is a choice.”

Silence hung between them as he painted another few rows, reaching his elbow and coming back down. Finally, he came back to the only name that stood out among the others, defiantly displayed across the back of his hand along the line of his ring finger.

“Did you love her?” Seung Gil said as he made a first pass over the name that fought to remain as a reminder of Jean’s torment.

The eyes didn’t look at him or the names, but instead stared at the lights above them, trained on the water dripping from the ceiling as the soft brush ran across more skin. “Yes.”

He paused as the name disappeared under a second coat of ink. “ _ Do _ you love her?”

Now the eyes turned to him. “When you love someone, that part of you never disappears. It doesn’t matter if they change, or if you change. That part of you that loved them in that moment will endure.” He bit his lip, a weird nervousness to the confession. “So yes, in a way, but I’m also a different person now. If she walked this earth again tomorrow, I’d love her memory, but not necessarily her.”

He covered up more of the names with another stroke, and with each pass after he saw the tension fading slowly from those weary eyes. “You loved each of them in some way, didn’t you?”

The god blinked sadly, before reaching over to run a thumb over the scales covering Seung Gil’s cheek. “Maybe. Some I knew better than others. Some hated me, some I hated.” He shook his head. “Regardless of how I ultimately felt, I cherish their memories.”

“Will you remember me like that, then?”

The names were gone, covered by a black glove of ink, when Seung Gil let go of Jean’s hand. Jean stared at it curiously like it was foreign to him, before he swapped his uninked arm into his grip. “Why don’t we find out?” The dark fingers came up to brush the scales on his arm, a reminder of the meaning behind the ritual. “You said it was a Mer tradition, didn’t you? So you paint your story on me, and I’ll do it for you.” There was a low warning that flashed in those eyes. “Make your mark, princess, and tell me the story that convinces me to never let you go.”

//

Before he felt the water start to churn, he’d been staring at the underside of his arms like they were the most fascinating things in the pond. Then again, with how the inked lines flowed up and down his pale skin in careful swoops, displaying a pattern of strange flowers and rushing tides, it was by and far the most interesting thing he’d seen in days.

He still could feel fingertips brushing his skin, a hand bracing against the scales of his arm to keep him still, while the other held the brush in fluid motions against his skin. It tickled as the bristles glanced over scales, and his tormentor would dab the splashes of ink off with a small cloth, choosing to ignore Seung Gil’s squirming. The seal on his skin protested the invasion of color before the stain sunk in, now unable to be normally washed off. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him - a temporary reminder of a moment - but it sent chills down his body that had his scales changing color from blue to purple to gray.

If Jean had noticed, he had thankfully kept it to himself.

When the water moved, he only shifted to look at the currents above him, lounging on the pond’s unnaturally white sand. It felt like the particles were being dragged, but not in the way that Seung Gil now recognized as Jean’s power. It was resistant, angry, unwilling to do as it was bid, and that was an unnerving thing to be trapped in.

He grumbled, curling into himself, a fear striking him that some other supernatural being had found him. The question of how burned brightly, and he tried to find some hint of who was above the surface. 

He calmed his thoughts enough to think it through - if anything else, he had his rationality to save him. Anyone that was less than a friend that had dominion over the sea crossing into Jean’s territory would be asking for some sort of retribution, and he’d seen enough of Jean’s power to know his captor wasn’t someone to be trifled with. There were few things known about the gods, but it was generally accepted that they were territorial to an extreme.

By that logic, it either had to be someone out to get payback against Jean, wanting to start a fight after somehow finding out about him, or a friend trying to pull a prank - with any of the ways, he wasn’t overly fond of the result. He wanted to be left alone to his thoughts, forgotten when Jean wasn’t here, so he flattened into the sand, careful not to move his tail and flick up anything that would signal where he was. 

Finally, the water quelled and he breathed out slowly, making sure to trap the air bubbles that came loose. He began to shift as a minute trickled by, the hope coming forward that whoever it was had left. He uncurled his clenched hands, running fingers down his arms, wondering about the strange tightening that started on his skin. Absently he rubbed at the tips where his scales overlaid skin, wondering why they were reacting, until he realized the water around him had started to push inward to a suffocating degree, almost as if it were being wrung, trying to escape being forced into submission.

Then came the heat, pushing up from the floor, seeping through the sand until each grain was its own point of pain, surrounding him until he had no option but to move. 

Within seconds, his skin had started to shriek in protest as the salt that protected him began to react to the scalding force, a feeling of burning blanketing him, and he was out of the cavern, twisting through the water to get out of the salt that was forming sheets on his skin. 

He broke through the surface and launched himself onto the small island, weirdly relieved to be out of the water when the cool air hit his skin. It was a strange sensation - to be grateful to be stripped of the water - and he let a broken sigh tear out of him, staring at his peeling hands.

“I didn’t believe it before - that it’d be one of you.”

His eyes stole over to the side where a slim man was still kneeled, his face slightly tilted as he studied Seung Gil. If he had wanted to hit Jean for being cocky, he wanted nothing more than to cut out this man’s eyes out and feed it to the gulls, but there was a spanse of steaming water between them and all of his body felt like lead.

The man seemed to sense the animosity and raised an eyebrow, pushing himself out of the crouch. Seung Gil followed the motion, seeing the scorch marks that covered the ground. His eyes narrowed, and he pulled his tail completely out of the water, curling around himself defensively. The scales interlocked firmly, becoming a semi-transparent shield.

“I didn’t think it’d been that long already,” he commented dryly, watching the water. “What’s your name, little Mer?”

He mulled over the answer, before hissing out what he hoped was a warning. There was no way he was giving a name - given or otherwise. “I’m Jean’s.”

“That I know.” The dark-haired man - with a similar shorter hairstyle as Jean but a smaller build and a more tightly lined face - didn’t smile, the hardened brown eyes calculating. His nose wrinkled in an expression that bordered distaste. “That’s why I’m here.”

“That’s hardly a why.”

There was the faint flash in his eyes again as he chose to sit, crossing his legs and dragging his hands through the sand. It was almost an instant reaction as the water exploded, a wave of heat pushing into him that had Seung Gil backing farther away from the ledge, the scales on his spine scraping against the stone behind him. “You should know what I am.”

That much was apparent, with the scorch marks and heated water and the water explosion show. This man was a god, but not one of the sea. “Why are you here?”

"Boredom," the god said, eyes flickering over his face before opening his palms. The bubbling stopped around him, and he couldn’t help a sigh of relief as the pressure surrounding him faded. "There was ink all over him. Pretty ink, at that, but he only ever does his hand because of the curse.”

“You know about it?” The question was out before he could stop it.

“I’m sorry about your skin,” he noted, brushing past the comment. “I did try to get you to come up gently. Heat was a bit of a last resort.” He sighed. “I’m not a fan of fooling with someone else’s things. In fact, it’s rather odd - I haven’t seen him so defensive about something in a long time. I don’t usually meddle, but life is rather boring these days.”

Seung Gil let his tail loosen, as the irritated skin was proving to be painful. The water was cooled - enough that getting back in wouldn’t be painful. He kept his eyes trained on the darkly clothed form on the sand. “You’re meddling because you’re bored?”

“You hardly seem like you’re in the spot to comment about boredom, swimming in circles in a pond.” The man pulled out a gold band that had been in his pocket, twirling it between his fingers. “Do you know what this is?”

His memory flashed to right before he’d stained Jean’s hands and how the god had carefully removed similar bangles. “Some sort of token?”

“Close. A marking of a god. It gives me a little bit of power over the sea. A tiny bit, but the water still hates me.” He tossed it up once, catching it and twirling it between his fingers. “You probably could feel how my control is nothing like Jean’s. It’s a borrowed power from him.”

“Why would he give you that?”

“That’s what friends do, right? We share?” Seung Gil snorted, starting to pull his fins back over his eyes, before the god’s words stopped him. “Convenience. Long ago, he wanted to experience the land. He took a pendant of mine so he wouldn’t burn under the sun, and I took one of his so I could explode the world below.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re dead anyway.”

It was the way he made the statement that had him freezing in place, stripping apart the words and reordering them in his mind. There was such a finality to it, as if there was no question as to what his fate would be, no possibility of an escape. There was a bit of pity dropped into the simple sentence, as if this friend of Jean’s was just waiting for it to end, a part of the process that was just here to make misery out of company.

That wasn’t good enough. 

A tight silence filled the air as he completely uncurled, and leapt into the water that flowed over his form like a healing sleeve. It had cooled down to the point where he was splitting through the water without flinching, coming back to the land in front of this stranger.

He glared, unwilling to back down even as a handsome but eerie smile began to form on the stranger’s face. “What do you know?”

“Enough that I could tell a few stories.” The brown-eyed devil leaned in, a hand on his chin. “You know, this entire thing is rather odd. I was surprised to see the Mer lines - I thought I might be wrong, that some human just really liked drawing on people, and yet here I am, finding a Mer in Jean’s pond. At least usually I can sympathize with them; how stupid are you to go into the call yourself? Isn’t the divide of darkness enough of a warning sign?"

The temptation to carve up his face was growing at a frightening pace. “Tell me what you know.”

“Tell me your name, then.”

His previous conviction on not giving up his name melted with the proposition. His first name was on his tongue, but he bit it back, remembering those names on Jean’s hands. If he wanted to survive this, that wouldn’t be who he was any more. “Seung Gil.”

Those eyes flickered, creating the illusion of understanding. Seung Gil wondered if the other captives he’d met before had given him their real names or the ones Jean had provided for them. “My name is Otabek - nice to meet you, little Mer.” He reached over, a finger running hotly against the scales of his chin. It wasn’t a reaction of passion, not like when Jean touched him, but one created by cinders that couldn’t be cooled. Seung Gil jerked back, feeling how the scales must have turned a molten black. “Too warm?”

“Sorry, you’re just not my type.”

“That I can tell. I couldn’t mark you even if I wanted to,” Otabek noted, a tone that was just bridging ridicule in his voice as his eyes trailed over the dark patterns that crossed over Seung Gil’s chest and arms. “But, however, I’ve been ill mannered. Is the water still uncomfortable?”

He offered a shrug in response, as his scales couldn’t lie about the discomfort. The fire god hummed lightly, before dipping a single finger into the water. Seung Gil watched as the steam seemed to rise from the water, curling around the long fingers and dissipating into the air. There was an immediate difference in temperature, cooling rapidly, until it no longer was turning his scales into violent angry colors.

“I’m a fire god, little bit of light mixed in,” he explained briefly, looking somewhat irked. “I suppose I should apologize again. I wasn’t meaning to hurt you.”

Seung Gil dipped his hands back in the cooled water, the balance again having returned to a point where the seal on his arms could reform. He watched the second skin reform, the nearly opaque nature fading. “That’s rather fascinating. It doesn’t feel like anything either.” Otabek seemed interested in that, particularly. “It lets you breath underwater, right? And that’s not all you can do, from what I hear. Have you shown Jean yet?”

“There isn’t much to see,  _ Otabek,”  _ Seung Gil replied, mouthing the name like venom. “So, tell me, are you Jean’s sidekick?”

While his expression looked more amused over annoyed, Seung Gil found himself flinching as a response rolled off his tongue. “I’m someone who could make you into a fillet, so I’d watch your tone.”

Seung Gil narrowed his eyes at the fire god, wrinkling his nose. “I do think Jean wouldn’t appreciate that.”

Otabek’s blank response was more unnerving than it should have been. “I’m nice to all of his guests. They just all have a time limit. There’s hardly a point to get attached to something that is bound to die.” The fire god played with the air, a fire sparking in his hands. “There isn’t a point to like something if you know you’re going to have to toss it away.”

“Then tell me - what do you know?”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“Don’t all the bad guys spill their secrets before they do something malicious?”

“Oh little one, I’m hardly the thing you should worry about in the sea.” The brown-eyed man raised eyebrow. “Fine - I’ll play the villain in your story. He saved you, yes? He probably didn’t tell you how.” Otabek reached across, tapping the pale skin of Seung Gil’s chest, an action that had him flinching back into the water to avoid the heat seeping out of those fingers. “He pulled the siren call out of you, and replaced it with threads of his soul.”

There was a strange chill in the water that wasn’t the doing of the fire god. “Threads of his soul?”

Otabek leaned back in the sand, looking as if he were talking about the weather over Seung Gil’s sorry fate. “It’s funny, because he can’t even stop himself. He’s helpless to it. He’ll save one person, once a year, from the call that manifests. He’ll pull that ‘magic’ out and replace it with his soul, and you’ll get a month to reclaim your heart, to make those threads your own. And if you can’t, just like the rest of them, he’ll be forced to take it back.”

“There has to be a choice.”

“Everyone believes that, until the end, when they realize he no longer sees them and they’ve lost. They’ve tried killing him, tried bargaining, tried running. It’s never a choice. Not having those threads drives him mad, and at the end he doesn’t even see you when he comes back.”

“So you’re saying he’s guiltless?”

“He’s paid his due, just like we all have. He’s suffered - every time he suffers. Do you think he’s never tried letting people go?” Seung Gil’s heart decided it’d skip a beat as the serious eyes trapped him. “He’s let them go, then ripped through the ocean in his madness to get his soul back. He doesn’t waken until their heart is in his hands, crushed to smithereens.”

Seung Gil found he wasn’t breathing, and told himself he needed to since he was out of the water. Slowly, he pushed air out of his tired lungs, not used to the bitter exertion. “Why tell me this?”

“So you aren’t disillusioned thinking you can just convince him to save you.”

An odd thought flickered through his mind that had him narrowing his eyes, reconsidering the man before him and the circumstance around their conversation. “Are you being nice to me?”

Otabek raised an eyebrow. “Nice, perhaps, is not the word I’d use.” He drew something in the sand absently, seeming to need to do something with his hands constantly. “Even I don’t like seeing him suffer. We might both be gods, travelling the earth in search for a cure to our curse - or at least he used to before he gave up - but I never want to bestow unhappiness upon him. He just doesn’t know how to tell you.”

Seung Gil raised an eyebrow, surprised at the turn of tone. He tucked away the thought that this god was cursed for another time - he could see his arms and they weren’t marked. Was it possible that each curse was different? Considering he knew nothing about them, the answer was a resounding yes. 

He mulled over how the smaller god watched him, almost expectant of a reaction but waiting to be disappointed. “I’d say you’re being nice to me.”

The fire god shrugged. “There’s hardly anything nice about the truth, but your best chance is knowing. You’re a Mer, and you come from the sea. You’re different than the ones that came before, so I hope you can free him.”

He dusted his pants off as he stood, slipping the gold bracket back into his pocket, and Seung Gil had a faint thought that he hadn’t had a chance to know what that little trinket let him do. It hit him seconds later, a strange sense of despair, as he realized the man was clearly turning to go. It was seeing a chance at being saved again leaving, even if that same chance had nearly roasted him minutes earlier. “You’re going?”

“I wasn’t ever intending on staying longer than saying hello.” Seung Gil bit back a remark on his strange greeting. “But, if you’d like, I’ll get you an early wedding gift.” He had to swallow another remark that would have come off indignantly. “What would you like, little Mer?”

“Nothing,” he gritted out, backing back into the water.

Those eyes were blank as an eyebrow raised. “Are you sure? It isn’t something you’ll be able to change your mind about later.”

“Yes,” he hissed, tossing around the idea of dunking the man into the pond. “What’s the point? There’s no way to reach the Mer. They know better than to talk to you.” That much was true; his kind wouldn’t be caught dead in the path of a god.

“A shame, really, I do find your kind rather fascinating.”

He froze as the only exception he could think of flitted into his mind, before swiveling in the water to watch as the man began to disappear. “Wait.”

Compared to how Jean filled out the entrance, it was odd to see Otabek standing there. The eyes narrowed as they urged him to say his piece. “You have a request then?”

He sighed. “It’s hardly a request for you. Just a chance.” He prayed for a moment that this wouldn’t be a stupid idea. He wasn’t on best terms with the spitfire Mer, but any ideas would be better than nothing. “Every night, when the sun touches the corners of the sky, there’s a Mer that will swim up to the surface by the isles. He’ll be there just long enough to see it set, then he’ll be gone. Find him for me, and ask him for an obolochka.”

“A what?”

“Obolochka.”

Otabek paused, mouthing the words silently. “Like a seashell?” Seung Gil just glared. “That’s a bit of an odd gift, little Mer.”

He balanced in the water before turning away, still feeling the ache on his skin from where the seal had been stripped and reformed. “If you like playing with fire,  _ little _ god, that Mer will make sure you get burned.”

There was a laugh from the man then, echoing in the cavern around them. “I don’t burn.”

“Don’t be so sure.” He let the water run over him until it had all but swallowed him, turning back to watch the figure as he floated through the small ripples. “You might’ve traveled the world, but he’s like nothing else you’ve ever seen. That Mer will carve his name into you; he’ll make sure you never forget.”

The god blinked once, something odd flickering in his expression. “You sound like you could be in love with him.”

“Better him than someone like you,” Seung Gil grumbled with a shake of his head, the water briefly covering his nose before he shifted far enough above the surface again to speak. “Just meet him and ask. If you like a surprise, crave something different, that’s who he is. He’s different. Yura has a habit of never letting anyone forget who they are.”

There was a faint smile that touched Otabek’s lips as he brought a scarf over his face, hiding the expression as if it’d never there. “I guess we’ll just have to see then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! WELCOME TO THE MADNESS (of Otabek as a fire god). I promise he's not quite as... angry as he comes off in the opening... he has his reasons for being a bit of an ass, just like Jean does. He does have a curse - first one to guess what it is gets a cookie. :P
> 
> Please, please leave me comments! <3 
> 
> Also, many thanks to Varr and [inqueblott](http://archiveofourown.org/users/inqueblott/pseuds/inqueblott) for reading this over and pointing out where I got super tired and starting making weiiiird errors... and Shino! For being the reason this exists, as well as making Otabek a fire god (he was originally a shrimpy river god. This is so much better.)
> 
> Not terribly sure when the next chapter will be released, but I've already finished the first part. It was originally going to be in this chapter, but this chapter hit 10,000 words and I decided that was probably not a great idea. No need to over double the story in one go... More comments == faster update? Who knows.
> 
> As always, if you'd ever like to follow me elsewhere: Twitter - [ZoravPOW](http://www.twitter.com/ZoravPOW) (notifications and WIPs). <3


End file.
